P.S. -- I'm home

I have been putting off this post for weeks now.

I really did intend to share pictures of my time in southern India...

and a brief stop in Singapore...

and a lovely week in the Philippines...

but then it didn't happen.

I let myself be overwhelmed by time changes, international flights, reunions with family and pets, packing/unpacking, and trying to establish myself back in the United States. I gave myself permission to reflect at whatever pace felt most comfortable.

I didn't want to write until I felt like I could say something that would appropriately represent this experience.

And because there aren't any words to fully capture or express my time in Nepal, it's July and people think that I'm still trapped on a camel in Rajasthan. So I'd like to apologize for misrepresenting my return to the United States, I made it back safely... about ten weeks ago. While I don't know how to write in a way that I feel satisfactorily represents the last year, I am getting better about doing it in person. If you are interested in hearing more let me know. I'd love to go out to coffee or even make another attempt at crafting momos in an American kitchen.

Grace and peace,
Rachel

Twinkle

(From December 23, 2013)

The stars were so beautiful tonight.

I was squatting at the tap outside the kitchen door, because I’m on my period so my dishes can’t be washed with anyone else’s. The sun dropped below the hills of the valley long before dinner at 7:30 so by the time I finished eating any traces of dusk’s dim light had disappeared. And it was loadshedding so there was no light flooding over from neighboring houses.

It was dark.

When I reached up to pass the soap back inside to my host sisters, doing the rest of the dishes, I caught a glimpse of the sky. It was like a silver glitter fiasco on a dark blue kindergarten carpet. I finished rinsing and came back inside, happy to put my damp hands into my gloves, hoping they would regain feeling after the freezing tap water.

Up on the roof, I went to the north corner where the light from a nearby hotel’s generator is blocked. I gazed up and marveled at the largeness of the dark and the potency of each star. I threw my head back and leaned until the houses and the hills and the world were completely out of view.

My eyes scanned the grand expanse of the sky and I thought to myself, “wow…it looks just like a planetarium.”

Something tells me that's not how it's supposed to go.


***
Also, if you are interested in learning more about the time I didn't go to Sri Lanka, check out my friend Virginia's blog. I tried and didn't have the emotional stamina to relive the whole experience in writing so I'm especially grateful someone else did. Because this is a story to be told. http://virginiafrommontana.com/2013/12/16/stuck-in-a-glass-box-or-why-i-will-never-again-fly-through-the-delhi-airport/

Top Ten Treasured Photographs

It’s hard to believe that by the end of this week I will have been in Nepal for over five months. My one semester commitment to Reach the World has ended when I sent it my last article at the beginning of December. I knew it would be impossible to summarize all of my experiences in a coherent way, so I decided to write my farewell to my RTW students with a top ten list of my most treasured photographs so far. I’m not done writing, but I thought the pictures and the comments were worth sharing. (Especially since I haven’t been very consistent in my postings lately.) Some of the pictures have already made an appearance here, but I think some are new.

As written for my Reach the World students…

 
1) Time to Fly: this picture was taken at an old stone temple that sits atop a hill on the edge of the Kathmandu Valley. From the temple you can watch the morning fog roll across the entire city and then dissolve like sugar in a cup of hot Nepali tea. Religion, in many different forms, is an essential part of Nepali culture. The way the birds are frozen in mid-air in the picture reminds me of the way that religion forces people to stop, to reflect on their lives, and to enjoy a moment of peace.

2) Camaraderie: the people whose outlines you see in this photo are my friends. I didn’t know any of them before coming to Nepal, and if I hadn’t accepted the opportunity to teach English here I probably would never have met them. Sharing this wonderful experience with such friendly, funny and generous people has made my time in Nepal even richer.

 

3) Dance Like No One’s Watching: I took this picture during a celebration at a local school. I’m not sure who started it, but soon a circle had formed and students where showing off their coolest moves. Teachers and students alike gathered around to cheer. This particular kid was pretty shy at first. He acted like he didn’t know what to do, until someone started playing music and he went crazy.  No matter where you are it’s important to embrace the current moment, be spontaneous, and have fun.

 

4) Untitled: I love this photo because when I saw it, I felt like I had walked into a postcard. I love travelling because this feeling happens to me all the time. When you are surrounded by things you know it is easy to ignore the beauty that exists all around. Arriving someplace new invites you to open your eyes and marvel at your surroundings. Even if it’s just a flower or a wall or the sky.
 

 

5) Tika: one of the hardest parts of leaving home is spending time away from friends and family that you love. But by investing in the community and building relationships with local people I have often found myself absorbed into a new kind of family. I can’t just say “mom” anymore because I have to specify if I am talking about my Nepali aama or my American mom. This picture was taken during Dashain and it will always remind me how graciously my host family accepted me as part of their family.

 

 

6) Desk at Dusk: when I return to America, I probably won’t miss the loadshedding schedule and the inconvenience of living without electricity for several hours each day. I hope that my experience will remind me not to take things like electricity and clean water, straight from the tap, for granted anymore. However, I also hope that I will never forget how simple it was to adjust to living without. I hope that I won’t become so easily frustrated my life it’s as convenient as I might have wanted. I hope that I will be patient and grateful.

 

7) Mero Bidhyaarthiharu (My Students): since I am teaching English in Nepal, my student are a huge part of my experience. I treasure their shouts of “good morning miss!” on my way to school, and I even smile at their snotty noses or dirt stained uniforms. I love them on the days they listen and I love them on the days when they spend the whole class misbehaving. I am almost positive they are teaching me more than I could ever teach them.

 

 

8) Strength: living in Nepal it is hard to look around without seeing someone carrying something with a strap around their forehead. I have seen women carrying bundles of hay or other crops larger than their bodies. I have watched men stride down the road with full entertainment center cabinets like it was nothing. I struggle to keep my jaw from dropping open when I pass someone with a basket full of bricks or cement, and I constantly wonder how their neck can support such a heavy load. Living in Nepal I am surrounded by examples of intense physical labor every day. I continue to be awed by the strength and perseverance each of these individuals display.

 

 

 

9) In the Kitchen: in all of my travels abroad I have learned how the process of preparing food can bring people together. You don’t have to speak the language, you don’t have to know the recipe. All you need is a willingness to get your hands dirty. The need to prepare, to eat, and to clean creates an international language that can be understood even when so much is lost in translation. And if you can master a dish or two, it will make for a delicious reminder of that particular place no matter where your further travels lead you.

 

10) Himalaya: a photographic summary of Nepal simply wouldn’t be complete without these resplendent mountains. They stand mighty bold like an impassable fortress, but then disappear behind the clouds like magicians. They are beautiful and imposing in a way that is difficult to express in words. I was never someone who was big on “nature,” but if you ever get the chance to visit this mountain range in person I urge you to take advantage of it.  

 

Reach the World

Towards the end of August, I received an invitation to participate as a travel correspondent for an organization called Reach the World. The full description of the program is below, but essentially Americans travelling in foreign countries volunteer to write two articles per week on topics like tradition, food, transportation, or the environment. These articles are published to the RTW website where students and teachers can access what quickly becomes an up-to-date travelogue from hundreds of locations across the globe. Each traveler is also matched with a single classroom and will correspond with that group of students more personally from messages to video-conferences.  

Reach the World (RTW) is a global education non-profit based in New York City. Since 1998, RTW has been cultivating relationships between young students and volunteer world travelers through an innovative program of online journalism and face-to-face interactsions. Over the past 15 years, RTW has directly served 16,000 students and 800 teachers in under-served communities.

Reach the World’s mission is to help elementary and secondary school students and teachers to develop the knowledge, attitudes, values, and thinking skills needed for responsible citizenship in a complex, culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. The program hopes to address two major problems faced by youth in under-served communities: the narrowing of the curriculum, forcing out subjects other than literacy and mathematics; and the unequal access to technology tools. Through a standards-based program of web-based journalism, videoconferencing and collaborative project-making, RTW students go on virtual journeys with global mentors and engage in hands-on learning within the classroom. Global competence surveys reveal that in the process, RTW students are expanding their worldviews and developing an understanding of global citizenship.

Um…non-profit encouraging global competence and appreciation for diversity. It took me all of three seconds to know that this was a program I definitely wanted to be involved in. As much as I hope that some of what I teach my Nepali students will have an impact, deep down I believe that where my greatest potential lies is in bringing back artifacts, anecdotes, and pictures that can make the world come alive for my future students in the United States. Anything I can do as a teacher to help kids realize that there is more to the world than just their town, city, state, country; and that all of the other people out there matter just as much as the ones here… that’s what I want to be doing.

 

This picture has nothing to do with RTW. It's just a photo that I like.
I took it in Nagarkot and the people silhouetted are the other ETAs I was with.

 

Anyway, I applied and was accepted. So now I teach English to grades 1-5 six days per week, run afterschool intervention groups for struggling students Sunday-Tuesday, lead a poetry club for 7-9^th graders on Thursdays, take Nepali lessons twice a week, do teaching workshops for the staff at my school on Fridays…and write two articles per week for Reach the World. Perhaps that explains why my blog posts have been a little bit sparse lately. Despite being busy, I love everything and I wouldn’t give any of it up (well except maybe class 3 after a really hard day!)

If you are interested in learning more about RTW you can visit their general website at reachtheworld.org. From there you can access three hundred journeys that are currently on-going from Nepal to Germany to South Africa and beyond. Below are some specific links to my articles.

 

Already Published…

·          Autobiography

·          Logbook #1: Godavari

·          Field Note: What is transportation like in Nepal?

·          Field Note: What do people eat in Nepal?

·          Field Note: How do people cook in Nepal?  

·          Journal: Festival Season

 

Coming Soon…

·          Logbook #2: Nagarkot

·          Field Note: What is daily life like in Nepal?

 

**If you are a teacher and you would like more information about using RTW in your classroom, or connecting with a traveler, check out the general information on the website and then use the links on the homepage to get in touch with a RTW staff person. Same goes for international travelers interested in sharing their journey with students in the U.S.**